


Nemesis

by ellethom



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But this fandom?, Gift Exchange 2018, Gift for Anavolena, Got a little open ended there, High Speed Non Chase, Its only a matter of time, M/M, Not as fluffy as I woulda liked, Terse situations, getaways, no one dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-10-01 10:54:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17242964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellethom/pseuds/ellethom
Summary: So, this is my first foray into this fandom, and it is a gift to Anavorlena.  I hope you like it,I made this post 2x12.  I know you wanted canon compliant, and I tried.  Really I did.Anyway, enjoy folks.





	Nemesis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anavolena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anavolena/gifts).



“You know, as ideas go, this is entirely ridiculous.” Will watched the landscape flash past in watercolors of grey and green. His words were, as typical of the pair, meant to elicit, to poke. However, the figure behind the wheel of the fast moving vehicle was atypical in his silence. 

“Will shifted in his seat in the overpriced car. “I mean, I would have expected more out of you, Dr. Lecter.” Maybe silence, but at least a subtle tightening on the steering wheel and an increase in speed were enough to spur on the younger man into more...prodding. 

“I mean,” Will spoke again as he flitted another look behind him, still awaiting the haze of blue lights. There were none, but like a phantom limb, Will was certain that Jack would appear from nowhere and reenact the infamous Bronco chase. 

But, the greying West Virginia back roads were as empty as they should be at 4:30 am on a Thursday morning. “Who does a runner in a Bentley?”

Will resettled himself into his seat and facing forward again, gave another glance to the man driving. “So, we aren't going to talk about this, then?” 

Silence, still.

“You’re angry, I get that. But a high-speed non-chase through the backroads of Podunk, West Virginia was not the way I thought you would react.” Will chanced a glance at the subtle tightening of the older man’s jaw. He could stop, leave the ride to wherever bathed in silence and possibly live a few hours longer. Or.

“So, we just gonna keep driving until land runs out? Me running my mouth like the tap on an all-night Kegger and you doing the whole. ‘Silent but Deadly’ routine?” Poking was good. Poking worked.

Somehow, Hannibal’s continued silence next to him was far worse than any knife plunged into his soft spots.

He supposed it was a compromise, he had lied, had obfuscated and had been called out in his lie. Over dinner. A sacrificial lamb, no less. Will shrugged, at least he had, under the weight of the truth and the balance of scales tipped just so, had told the truth, had agreed to run off that night. They had stopped at his home in Virginia long enough to leave that note and for Will to grab anything he could not possibly leave behind. 

Winston, however, didn’t make that list.

That had been four hours ago, Four hours, 300 and some odd miles, and what felt like a lifetime. Hannibal was driving as if there was a cadre of law enforcement behind them, in a car that was so easily marked that Will wondered, if only for a moment, if the murderous man was himself, reenacting some infamous car chase. “At least tell me where we are going, or, if I’m meant to survive this?”

The car made a swerve, a dip and turned. Stopped. Hannibal threw open the door and marched to the front of the car. In a moment, the younger man wondered if this was where it would happen if this was where they would find his body.

But, Hannibal just stood, off to the side of the road, as if he had run out of batteries. Will watched the man stand, hands clenching and unclenching. He stood stock still, as if uncertain of what to do next. 

It was so unlike the physician, that Will questioned his next move; slide over to the driver’s side of the over-priced car and plow forward, jump out and run, or.

Or explore one of the greatest mysteries of the modern age: a flustered Hannibal Lecter. 

Will had never been one for making decisions that were altogether life embracing. He knew, wherever they were, wherever they were going at breakneck speed would go a lot faster if 

He found himself standing in front of the man before his good sense could think. Closer than he should be to a man possibly in the throes of as close to a moral crisis as someone like Dr. Hannibal Lecter could get. “Hey,” he said.

“My compassion for you is inconvenient,” Hannibal said around a grimace. “What you’ve done, what you did. I have killed for far less.”

Will nodded, of course, he had. 

The haze of early morning seemed to envelop them as they stood on the side of the road. There were no cars, no sounds. It seemed even Mother Nature knew how volatile this was going to get. Will wanted to speak, had even opened his mouth to expound upon the virtues of crimes of passion. But the cold fury in the eyes of the man snapped Will’s mouth, and mind closed hard enough to rattle his own teeth.

Tread lightly, Boy. 

He heard his father’s voice; a shade of days gone past when his father would warn Will of his mouth writing checks that his ass couldn't cover. Or, when he had picked Will up from jail the first or tenth time. 

Tread lightly, Boy.

“Everything in me wants to tear into you. Rend your flesh from its bones and gut you. Bathe in your desiccated flesh and wallow in the putrid remains.” 

Will took a hesitant step forward, “You really know how to sweet talk a guy.”

Hannibal’s eyes swirled, not a single emotion on his cherubic face. “And yet,” he began.

“And yet,” Will supplied. “Here we are.”

They stared at each other for what seemed an eon. No words passed between them. Hannibal’s threat hung in the air, dipped and slithered around them as the sky brightened. 

“What do you want from me?” Will asked finally. He raised two hands and swiveled around as if to display the ridiculousness of the situation. “Why are we here?”

“You enrage me,” Hannibal admitted as if mentioning the oncoming rain that they could both taste on the West Virginian morning. 

“I get that.” Will nodded. “And I still agreed to come with you.” He had. Knowing that it could lead to his death, whether physically, emotionally or entirely. He had come with him, had gotten in the car. Had agreed in the torching of whatever life he could have clung onto. Had lit the match and stood back next to Hannibal, watching it burn. He took another hesitant step toward him. “I ask again, what do you want from me?”

Hannibal speaks through clenched teeth and twisted lips. “I want. Isn't that enough?”

Like a scared animal found along the road, a commonality in Will’s life, he approached the man, raised his hand as slow as a sad summer song and placed it on Hannibal’s cheek. “You’re not used to wanting,” he whispered. “Me neither, but at some point, Hannibal, even the gods have desires.”

“I wanted to hurt you. I want to hurt you.” Hannibal said. 

Hannibal raised his hand to rest on Will’s and slid into the younger man’s touch. “We all succumb,” he said. “No matter how dark.”

“We’ve been a nemesis to each other. For so long, Hannibal.” Will leaned a hair's breadth closer, imagined if he had beef jerky this would be the point of enticing the stray into his car. “It’s not sustainable.”

He nodded, but that silence slithered in between them again. Then, “I would burn the world for you.” Hannibal’s eyes flashed something, and Will found truth within those sanguine depths.

“With me in it?” he asked.

“I would rather not, but it would be regrettable.”

Will tilted his head, realizing that something was truth within those words. “Have you regretted anything of what you’ve done to me?”

Like a bucket of water doused upon him, Hannibal straightened. His face hardened into that mask that Will knew so well. “We are wasting time. The intrepid Alana is sure to find your note.”

His hand gripped tighter on Hannibal’s cheek, “no,” he said. “I know a runner when I see it.” 

“A runner is exactly what I am trying to make successful here, Will.” He stepped back. “We can, in fact, finish this in the car. Preferably while it's moving.”

Will watched the older man move to the driver’s side of the car. He sighed, knowing that all the decisions that they had both made, all the hurts, all the attempts at literally killing each other had led to this one moment. If the rules weren't laid down they would spend an eternity repeating the pattern. 

This was their design.

He could hang where he was, force an outright duel at High Noon. Will knew, if he didn't get in that car again, Hannibal wouldn't move an inch, maybe not until Jack Crawford himself rolled up on them, complaining of the cow pies he had to dodge to finally get his hands on his White Whale. 

Instead, Will got into the damned car. Again.

Tread lightly, Boy.


End file.
